Various stored and dispensed products are adversely affected by moisture, oxygen and otherwise ambient atmospheric conditions. Perishable items, such as bulk pharmaceuticals, industrial and laboratory grade chemicals, and cosmetics, may degrade. Other perishable items, such as food products, may spoil and lose flavor. The preservation of certain food products is accomplished by controlling and minimizing the agents of food spoilage.
Food spoilage may be considered as any tactile, visual, olfactory, or flavor change that the consumer considers to be an unacceptable departure from the food's normal state. Of particular importance are oxygen and moisture, which can degrade some food products in a short period of time. A number of preservation techniques, including canning, dehydration, refrigeration, chemical additives, irradiation, and vacuum packing have been devised to stop the various types of food spoilage. Vacuum packing is a known method of removing oxygen and moisture from an environment where food is to be stored.
Ground coffee is one food product, for example, that is vacuum packed to maintain freshness during its storage and delivery to the consumer. Unfortunately, ground coffee begins to loose freshness the moment the container is opened and the vacuum lost to the surrounding atmosphere, which is normally humid and oxygen rich relative to the coffee. Because whole-bean coffee degrades more slowly than ground coffee, consumers are demanding whole-bean coffee that they can grind in small portions just prior to brewing. However, the delivery of roasted whole-bean coffee to consumers in a retail setting is plagued with difficulties, for whole-bean coffee is susceptible to the same, albeit more gradual, degradation in freshness caused by the permeation of oxygen and moisture that occurs during its storage and delivery to the consumer.
Roasted whole-bean coffee is commonly sold from what is known in the industry as atmospheric storage bins. These storage bins typically allow for the storage of beans therein and for access to the beans by the consumer via a scoop or dispensing mechanism. While the storage bins may allow for an easy access to the beans by the consumer, they unfortunately also allow air and moisture to permeate the beans when the beans are stored therein because the atmosphere within the storage bins is common with the atmosphere existing outside the bins. When exposed to these elements, the roasted coffee beans quickly begin to lose their rich aroma, freshness, and distinctive taste.
Various storage and dispensing systems have been devised that both maintain the freshness of the perishable product stored and readily dispense such product when needed. Such systems typically comprise an air-tight storage container for storing the dispensable product, a dispensing mechanism for dispensing a limited amount of product from the storage container, and a vacuum system connected to the storage container or dispensing mechanism for maintaining a reduced atmospheric pressure within the storage container. Many of these systems include complicated arrangements which enable an operable interaction between the storage container, dispenser and vacuum system.
For example, many systems include multiple valve arrangements linking the internal pressure of the storage container with both an outside atmosphere and a vacuum source. Operation of these valve arrangements are typically linked via complex cam arrangements with multiple dispensing doors associated with the storage container itself. A multiplicity of valves and doors both increases the cost of production of such storage and dispensing systems and increases the likelihood for the occurrence of malfunctions and leaks from the system.
Another common problem with the prior devices is that their design does not allow for the free flow of product out of the container. This is because the various designs, in their attempts to isolate the atmosphere of the interior of the container, rely on dispensing mechanisms having air-tight portion control chambers or dispensers that allow only a limited amount of product to be dispensed at a time. Unfortunately, devices having portion control dispensers have not been successful with consumers who want to control the amount of product that they dispense and purchase.
Portion control dispensers have the disadvantage of requiring multiple operations of the dispenser if the consumer selects a total volume of product that exceeds that dispensed by the system during a single operation, thus diminishing the system's simplicity and ease of operation. These dispensers thus have the disadvantage of requiring the consumer to operate the dispenser multiple times to fill a bag or other storage container having a volume exceeding that dispensed by the system during a single operation of the system.
When presented with a variety of flavored coffees to purchase, many consumers desire to create their own mixture of coffee beans within a given container, thus adding multiple flavors of coffee from the variety of dispensers to a single container. In creating their own mixtures, consumers thus desire to control the quantity of a given flavored coffee added to their mixture, with the quantity desired of a given flavor often not matching that dispensed during a single operation of a portion control dispenser.
Thus, there is a need for a more simplified storage and dispensing system designed so that stored product is relatively free from interaction with air and humidity and readily dispensed with a minimal occurrences of leaks and malfunction. The system should enable a free flow of product to allow the consumer to decide how much product to dispense. The present invention meets these desires.